Un-Melting
by hanazaki462anime
Summary: Sequel to "Warmth to a Frost Child". Jack is in serious condition. The Guardians take care of him, and in the process, they start to understand just how much they had missed out on the child. Rated T because of mentions of self-harm in later chapters. Also Humor in one chapter.
1. Emergency

**Un-Melting**

**A/N: To new readers; please read the prequel to this story, "Warmth of a Frost Child". Otherwise, you'll be kinda confused, I mean, you'll get the general idea of what happened, but it won't really flow.**

**To previous readers:**

**HEY Y'ALL I MISSED YOU SO MUCH! MIDTERMS ARE OVER WOOT!**

**Okay, that was a really cheery start! So here are the top three results of the poll:**

**1. Bunny being a mother hen (26 votes; I kinda expected this, haha)**

**2. Mentions of self-harm (20 votes; jeez, you guys are really sadistic, aren't you...)  
**

**3. Jack loopy on medication (15 votes; muahaha this will be very fun to write)**

**And all will be added with the according importance, so there will be Bunny being a mother hen for pretty much almost all the chapters, mentions of self-harm in several, and Jack being loopy on medication in one chapter only. Note that this is probably going to be longer than the prequel, "Warmth of a Frost Child"!**

**So there you have it, and enjoy!  
**

* * *

To say that E. Aster Bunnymund hated the sleigh was a _huge_ understatement. But as much as he would have liked to think that he could have been faster, the tunnels were not really a fast or safe way to travel when bringing an injured spirit along for the ride. And so he had taken one of his egglets, painted a message on it, and sent it down a tunnel to the North Pole.

It would have been fine for Jack to just stay here, at first. But then weeks passed and Bunny was getting worried; winter was not as cold as it used to be in December, and Jack was in what now qualified as a comatose state rather than tired sleeping.

And then one day Jack's forehead had begun to burn up.

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

Tooth flittered around the room nervously, shooting out directions to her mini fairies at an even more rapid pace than usual, if that was even possible. Sandy had yet to arrive, and North had all called them into the globe room at the North Pole with only three words.

_"Jack's in trouble."_

Just then, Sanderson ManSnoozie floated in through the window, looking very confused and worried. He noticed Toothiana and began to form a picture of Jack and a question mark, but the half-formed images dissolved when the Tooth Fairy shook her head. "I don't know either, Sandy. What do you think happe-"

They were cut off as North strode into the room, slipping out last-minute orders to the yetis outside. Tooth and Sandy were upon him like hawks on prey, one spouting questions non-stop and the other with rapidly changing figures overhead. North put up his hands in surrender. "Sandy! Tooth! Calm down! Jack is here! I do not know full story! Bunny brought him!" That calmed them a bit, but as soon as the Guardian of Hope brought Jack in, limp in his arms, they were all in full panic mode.

"_Jack_! Oh, sweet tooth!"

_Jack - sand - Pitch - ? - nightmare_

"Bunny, vhat happened-"

"_Calm down!" _The voice of the Pooka brought them all to a stop. "Jack is sick righ' now. _Our_ Jack. Jack Frost. An' he's still sick. Time fer askin' questions later, he needs help, mate!"

The last four words seemed to break some invisible spell on the entire group, and they all hastily gathered wet towels and cleared out a bed. "Tooth, catch!" Tooth wasn't sure who that was, either Bunny or North, but she raised her hand to neatly catch a pillow and slide it on the bed just seconds before Jack's head was lowered onto it. The only times they could work together in perfect sync before was when in times of battle or emergencies, but now they found themselves silently in tandem with each other in a routine not spoken but thoroughly understood.

Jack being sick ranked _extremely_ _high_ in their level of emergencies.

Somewhere in the middle of trying to cool his fever, Jack woke up halfway. "Mmm... Mom?" he mumbled, weakly raising a hand in an attempt to grab her hand. "Shh, sweet tooth, don't worry. Everything's fine," she whispered, running a hand through his snowy white hair. The teen whimpered. "Mom, it hurts." "Don't worry, honey, it'll go away soon," Tooth assured, looking back to throw the others a panicked look, mouthing 'We need painkillers'. North nodded and rushed out of the room.

He returned a few cruelly long minutes later, an assortment of pills in his hands. "Sandy, help," he said as he spread them out on a desk. The Sandman floated over to help him find the right pills, as Bunny hopped over to the bed. "Yer goin' ta be okay, Fros'bite. Don' worry." Sandy squinted at the label on a green container, and then pushed it into Tooth's arms, putting up two fingers. Tooth understood immediately, grabbing a nearby cup, filling it with water, and turned to Jack. "Sweet tooth, we need you to swallow some pills. Do you think you can do that?" "Mmhmm..," Jack moaned, nodding his head. "Alright, honey. Water," Tooth said, guiding the cup to Jack's lips. After helping him swallow the pills, they carefully laid him back on the pillow. Bunny read the back of the container, seeing the words_ 'May cause sleepiness.'_, and asked, "Jack, are ya feelin' sleepy?"

Jack tried to answer, but his eyelids struggled to stay open. The fatigue and fever won and he slipped back into unconsciousness.

* * *

**Sorry for such a short chapter o.0**

**Ten reviews is my goal for this chapter, thanks! And the next chapter will be up!**

**Stick with the story!**


	2. Memories

**A/N: Alright people! Let's aim for 40 reviews! And yes, I'm now naming the chapters.  
**

**Btw, even if I get over the amount of reviews I requested, I only post once a day. FYI.  
**

**Thanks for sticking with the story and its prequel, enjoy the second chapter!**

* * *

Jack blinked. Everything was blurry and all he could see were blurs of bright warm colors and fuzzy outlines. "Hello?" he called aloud, not sure if he was alone in this strange place. Jack rubbed his eyes, but nothing came into focus. Something occurred to him, and he did not find it pleasant. "I've gone blind!" he yelled, scrabbling around on the soft ground for his staff, only to find it was nowhere to be seen. But if it wasn't here, why was he so cold? It was the same kind of cold as when he was encased in a cave of ice in Antarctica. He should know, because that was exactly what he did during the first hundred years when he was still coping with the loneliness, and that was his temporary home while he...

He shook those thoughts away. That was the past.

The teen tripped over his own feet several times before managing to shakily stand on both feet. He rubbed his eyes again, and noticed that he had solid edges. Jack felt a _little_ relieved. "Okay, I'm either extremely nearsighted, or everything else is actually really furry." After a few cautious steps, the winter spirit spotted-presumably-a long table. As he placed his hands on the table for a sense of balance, it wavered and suddenly came into view, clear as day. Startled, Jack flailed his arms a bit before steadying himself. He could see that the table had several unidentifiable (and still fuzzy) items with glass covers over them.

Jack carefully placed a hand over the first glass and knocked on it. Apparently, whatever was inside wasn't alive. It was brown, and he had thought he could see two black eyes. He carefully lifted the cover and set it aside. He squinted. "What the heck are you?" he muttered, poking the object twice.

_Jack, stop playi-_

_-ight, dad-_

Jack gasped and snapped his hand back. "What...?" The object looked a bit clearer now, like a camera lens being adjusted. Jack's hand shook as he reached out and lifted the object off the table. As soon as his hand came into contact, voices-no, memories-flooded his head.

_"Jack, stop playing with your food."_

_Seven-year-old Jack looked up at his mother and pouted. "But it's the Boogeyman! Right, daddy?" He looked over to his father for moral support._

_The man scratched the back of his head. "Well, er, my eyesight seems to be failing, Jack. Can you tell me how he looks?"_

_The brown-haired boy nodded excitedly. "Of course, daddy! See, these are his face," -he pointed with his fork at string beans making up a slender faceline- "and this is his nose," -an upside-down mushroom- "and his eyes," -yellow peas- "and his hair," -seaweed- "and he doesn't have any eyebrows because I ate them."_

_The parents shrugged at each other. They had only told him about glowing red eyes and pointy face, so how a child could have come up with a much more human face was beyond their knowledge._

_"Well, alright," laughed his mother. "You'll have to go to sleep, honey." "Aww!"_

_After being tucked in and kissed on the head, the doors closed and Jack reached under his bed. "Hey, Mr. Boogeyman!" he whispered excitedly, drawing out his teddy bear out from the dark. "You can hug Mr. Bear anytime you want, because I thought that maybe you were a bit lonely down there." He snuggled into the covers and closed his eyes, golden sand soon floating above his head._

Jack blinked and looked down. The object in his had was now completely clear, revealing itself to be the teddy bear he had so adoringly carried around when he was a child. He was wearing a blue hoodie and having pale skin; back to being Jack Frost. 'A memory,' he thought, placing the teddy bear back in its place but leaving it uncovered. He walked over a few steps further down the table, to what looked like a small blotch of pink, also protected by glass. Jack removed the cover, and rested his hands on the pink spot. He felt the softness of petals as he was pulled into another memory.

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

Bunny sighed and replaced the hot damp rag on Jack's forehead with an ice cold one, frowning as it almost immediately began to warm up. Tooth wiped Bunny's face with a handkerchief. "Bunny, you should sleep...," she started. Bunny gently pushed the cloth away from his face and shook his head. "Nah, Tooth. I'm fine. It's jus'..." Tooth put a hand on his shoulder. "Just what?" Bunny rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Y'know, I think I was the only one tha' actually came up to the kid an' talked to him. I don' think I remember ever stoppin' jus' to ask 'im how he was doin'. I only jus' yelled at 'im fer blizzards and snow on Easter. An' the wors' was on tha' blizzard on... on '68".

Tooth shifted uncomfortably. She had only ever heard short, terse replies when she asked about the Easter blizzard of 1968 to either one of them, and the only thing she knew was that it was a touchy subject. She had never gotten the story from her two fellow Guardians before.

"What happened, on '68?" she asked quietly. Bunny began to tell the story resignedly. "It was, as you could tell, Easter Sunday of 1968..."

_Bunnymund shivered as he shot out of another tunnel. Snow! On Easter! The nerve! He didn't know what or who had caused this phenomenon, but according to several witnesses, it was the doing of a relatively new spirit named Jack Frost, and all of the said witnesses had unpleasant encounters with the wayward prankster before. This kept Bunny on his toes. After following Autumn Leaf's directions, he finally found the kid twisting and doing loop-de-loops in the air. "'Ey!" he called, "'Ey, you there! Jack Frost!"_

_The teen stopped for a while, looked around, and zipped to the ground when he spotted Bunny. "Hello! You're the Easter Bunny, right?" the snowy-haired spirit asked peppily, looking like he was ready to shoot off again. Bunny shivered. "Jus' call me Bunny, mate." "You're Australian?" The Pooka sighed. Already, he was getting tired of this hyperactive individual. "I am, but I didn' come 'ere to answer questions, kid. Did ya do," he swiped an arm around at their surroundings, covered in at least eight inches of snow, "all o' this?"_

_Jack nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! It's really pretty, isn't it? See, I heard you hid eggs, and I thought that maybe all that color would look nice with white, and it would be easier to hide them-" He was interrupted by the Easter Bunny. "Whoa, whoa, so ya thought tha' **snow**," he gestured to the ground, "would make things better?" The winter spirit scratched the back of his head. "Well, yeah. I mean, kids like snow and stuff, so-" "Well, it doesn't!" The yell stopped Jack short, and the look of euphoria was wiped off his face. "What?"_

_Bunny wasn't done. "All this is makin' people die, kid! Makin' **children** die! Snow doesn't make anything better!" He didn't notice the broken look on Jack's face. "I... I didn't mean to...," Jack said, tears welling up in his eyes. Bunny snorted. "O'course ya didn'. Tha's wha' they all say. Now scram!"  
_

_And right there, something in Jack broke.  
_

_"Alright. I'll leave," he spat, and there was a sudden harshness in his voice that had never been there before that stopped Bunny in his tracks. "But I'm not stopping if **you** tell me to." With that, Jack sped off into the murky darkness of the sky and Bunny swore he heard screaming. He shook his head and hopped back into his Warren, giving up on that Easter.  
_

Tooth's violet eyes had widened by the time Bunny finished. "Oh my god, Bunny...," she whispered. "I know, I know! I was a freakin' knucklehead, tha's wha' I was! I was stupid an' inconsiderate and Jack 'ad every righ' to knock me on the head righ' then an' there, but he _didn't_!" Bunny sighed. "I wish I could change tha'..."

Tooth put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We can't, though. That's the thing. We do things, and then they're part of our memories, but that's what they are. Just memories. I know we all have things we aren't proud of, but we can't just go and change that." She smiled. "So we just need to move on. Jack's your friend now, right? Maybe even your brother? Bunny, the most we can do is to try and make it up to him, which is something we won't _ever _be able to do, not completely. But we can always try our best." She patted his back. "Now get to sleep. You've been at this for over five hours."

Bunny looked at her, and sadly smiled.

"Thanks, sheila."

"You're welcome."

* * *

**And there we have Jack beginning to remember things... And Bunny regretting things.**

**Whoever wants to guess what kind of flower petals Jack touched? First three correct guessers get to be mentioned! (Hint: It has something to do with the fact that it can grow in winter and it's pink)  
**

**40 reviews, guys! We can do this!  
**


	3. Sister Flowers

**Flowers and a Change in Caretakers  
**

**Hey, I am back! So now we're heading for 50 reviews, guys!**

**The flower petals Jack touched were from a luculia! Gamma Cavy got it!**

**Well, congratulations to all for trying anyway! Here's the third chapter!**

* * *

Bunny opened his eyes blearily. He stretched in the armchair and looked over to where Jack was lying and groaned. No change in the teen's condition. Just then, Tooth walked in with a tray of carrots and cookies. "Feeling better?" she asked softly as she set the tray down on the desk next to Jack's bed. Bunny nodded. "Can't say the same fer the little bugger, though," he said, ruffling Jack's hair before taking a carrot and munching hungrily on it. Tooth smiled. "You should go to the Warren, Bunny. You know, for our regular patrol." Bunny hesitated. It was true, they had to go on daily patrols to make sure Pitch didn't ambush their places again. But with Jack in such a bad condition…

Tooth seemed to read his mind and flicked his ear. "Don't worry, BunBun. I'll look out for him, and when I can't, Baby Tooth will. So don't worry," she said, patting his shoulder. Just then, Sandy came in through the window, waving his hand as a silent 'Hi'. "See, now there's Sandy, too! And North is always here. So go ahead and leave, come back any time you want."

Bunny grumbled something about _'Wha' the heck is a BunBun?'_, tapped his feet twice on the floor, and hopped in, saying, "I'll be righ' back."

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

_"Hey, mum." Mrs. Overland looked over to where her nine-year-old son, Jack, was jogging lightly over to where she was sitting down. "What are you doing?" His mother laughed. "Oh, just here, enjoying the scenery," she replied. Jack tilted his head. "Okay, but dad says you should get back, and to be careful because of the baby. It's really cold out." "I know, hun. Sit down for a while?" she offered, patting the spot next to her. He sat down, and looked at her inquisitively. "Mom, what's that flower doing in your hair? It's winter!" "Hmm? Oh, this. It's a luculia. See, they grow in winter, and if you sprinkle their petals all around, it looks like it's raining. Or," she laughed, tickling her son, "snow, if you'd like."  
_

_Jack gasped between giggles and laughs, begging mercy from his mother's hands. "Mom! *giggle* Stop-*snort*-stop tickling me!" Smiling, the mother figure of the Overland family withdrew her hands and wrapped her arms around him, who shuffled closer into the hug. "Mom?" "Yes, honey?" "What are you going to name my sibling?" "Hmm." She closed her eyes. "I haven't decided yet." "**What**?" Jack was up in an instant. "But that's **really** important!" "Well, then, maybe you'd like to help me, Jack."  
_

_Jack tilted his head and looked skywards. "I dunno..." His eyes brightened when he saw the moon in the sky. "Look, Mom! It's a full moon!" he chirped, pointing to the sky excitedly and jumping up and down. Mrs. Overland stood up next to her son. "Oh my. I didn't know it was going to be a full moon today." She shook her head. "Maybe I lost count." She let herself be dragged over to their house by her son, brushing her fingers to take the flowers out of her hair. She was surprised to find that there were none, and looked down to see them in Jack's hands. "Oh, you sneaky little boy," she laughed when Jack threw them all over her. "Now you have snow flowers over your hair!" he grinned, and they both closed the door behind them.  
_

Jack shook himself out of another memory. He picked a single clear petal out of the pile and turned it over in his hand. "A luculia, huh?" he whispered, letting it flutter down to join the others in the pile. He moved on, only stopping to try and make out whatever had caught his fancy. It was like eye-shopping, or at least that's what he thought Pippa and Cupcake called it. Jack finally pulled the cover off of something that was a soft color of beige and slightly spilling over the other side of the table. "Hmm," he hummed, hand skimming over the piece of memory. He grasped it tightly in his hand as his mind recalled something that he had once vowed never to forget.

_"Mom! Mom! Can I see her? Can I see her?" Jack bounced up and down, excited to see the newest addition to the family. Mrs. Overland laughed, while her husband shushed their older child. "She's sleeping, Jack," his mother whispered, but was interrupted by a tiny hand reaching out and pinching her nose. "Not anymore!" cheered Jack, and his mother finally relented, letting the ten-year-old see the baby, all wrapped up in a comfy blanket. "Is it a boy?" he asked, but visibly deflated when his father shook his head. "Aww, man." His father poked his nose. "Now, that's not nice. Think how fun it would be to lead her all around, show her all the places you go when you ditch your chores," he chuckled at the look on Jack's face. "But I don't want to share my secret hiding spots!" Jack pouted. "Consider it for a while, Jack."  
_

_And he did. The longer he thought, the more he saw him and his sister playing games together, introducing her to the other kids, being a...  
_

_"A big brother," he breathed, the subject so foreign to him yet so inviting. He looked back to the small child wrapped up in the soft blanket, reached out, and held her hand, eyes widening when the small fist grabbed his finger with no intentions of letting go. A laugh bubbled up in his throat, and he smiled widely to the little child in the blanket.  
_

_His little sister.  
_

When the memory had faded, Jack's eyes remained closed. How could he ever have forgotten her? After what seemed to be an eternity, icy blue eyes opened and looked down at the blanket in his hand. It was as soft as he remembered, and had the same tint of light brown in it. Sighing nostalgically, he slid down on the wall next to the table and slept, the small memory nestled near his heart.

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**Y'know, you guys are really lucky to get this chapter; I'm sick. Well, see you guys later!**

**Don't forget, 50!  
**


	4. Medication Confession

**Yay! The review required for the next chapter is 70, just know that it will come anytime after Tuesday. Because apparently we have a Music midterm as well as a Science midterm. Dangit.**

**Okay, also, when Jack is in memory land, he doesn't remember what happened in the 'real world' and when he's in the 'real world', well, he's going to be a bit too distracted to discuss it with the other Guardians because it's time for...  
**

**Loooopy Jaaaaaack!**

* * *

Soon it was time for Tooth to help her fairies with work, and the same went for Sandy. Baby Tooth was put in charge of staying next to Jack, and North was to check in on him every twenty minutes. As the little tooth fairy flitted around her friend's face, Jack started to stir. "Mmm...,"he groaned. Baby Tooth squeaked in excitement. "Baby Tooth? ...Why are you here- ah!" he cried, arms wrapping around his torso. His throat felt like it was burning and his stomach was twisting in knots. "It hurts...," he managed to say between clenched teeth. Baby Tooth panicked; oh, what had her boss said? Tooth had had to leave very quickly to catch up on work and she had just managed to fit in all the directions in thirty seconds. The painkillers... painkillers... they were in the... the...

She squeaked in an exclamation as she remembered. The green bottle! She dashed over to the table that had medicine bottles and containers haphzardly strewn on top of it, soon plucking out an emerald green bottle out of the mess. She flew over to Jack as he started to whimper in pain. Two, Tooth had told her. Two what? Popping the cap from the bottle, she discovered that it was a measuring cap. Two milimeters! That was it! She carefully made sure that the liquid was poured down to exactly two milimeters; she didn't want to take chances. For a second she thought the liquid was sparkling, but of course it must have been just the lights reflecting off the surface. She flew up to him and squeaked, motioning him to tilt his head backwards. He did as he was told, and tried to drink the medicine without spitting it out. It felt almost like acid, sliding down in his throat.

He coughed, and a wave of dizziness hit him. As the world around him became brighter and somehow darker at the same time. A fleeting thought passed his mind before it became muddled.

'Weren't the painkillers _pills_...?'

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

Bunny hopped out of a tunnel right in front of the North Pole. Tooth had called via magic communicator snow globes, and he didn't like how the conversation had went.

_"Uh, hey Bunny."_

_"Tooth? Wha'cha callin' fer?"_

_"Umm... It's about Jack."_

_"Wha'! Why didn' ya tell me earlier-"_

_"He's not hurt, Bunny! I just think... I think you're the only one who knows how to deal with him like this."_

_"'Like this'? Whaddya mean, 'like this'?"_

_"Erm..."  
_

The snow globe had promptly fizzled and cut off his connection.

So here he was, frustrated beyond measure and a little worried (but the day he would admit it would be the day Tooth got a cavity and North stopped eating cookies). He pushed open the doors and made a beeline for the Tooth Fairy. "Tooth! The connection broke off, wha' happened?" The Guardian in question smiled nervously and spoke, all in one breath, "It must have been bad weather, was there a storm in Australia? I think I heard there was a storm in Australia. Yeah, that must have been why, huh?" But she wasn't fooling anyone because he could clearly see the remains of a broken snow globe hastily shoved into the corner. "So wha' happened?" "Well, see, Sandy and I had to go on our own patrols... And, we, um, put Baby Tooth in charge..."

Bunny raised an eyebrow. He knew that Baby Tooth was Jack's loyal friend (_that would never think of abandoning him for three hundred years, _reminded his conscience, but he shook it away for now was not the time to be regretting), and that she was capable of taking care of herself and Jack. "So?" Tooth absentmindedly began to play with her fingers and suddenly found the floor that she was floating over very interesting. "I, er, might have not been clear with the directions for the painkillers..." Bunny panicked. "Oh god, Tooth, don' tell me the kid's sufferin' from some exotic side effects!"

Tooth was quick to reassure him. "Bunny, Bunny, he's not hurt, he's not in pain, he's not any closer to dying, he's fine." She paused. "Physically."

"Whaddya mean, physically?" Bunny narrowed his eyes. Tooth cringed. "It... would be better for you to just go and see him." She led Bunny to the room that Jack was in. "So... go on," she motioned, suddenly very nervous.

Bunny gulped.

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

Jack was sitting on the bed with sunglasses (which were really just fake glasses colored in with tinted markers), and his head whipped around to see the Pooka in the doorway. "Hey, is that Bunny?" he asked, taking off his glasses. Even though Bunny knew that he was at a close enough distance for Jack to see him clearly, Jack squinted and then, deciding that this was indeed Bunny, waved his hand wildly. "Hey, Bunny!" he grinned. "Can you tell me why I'm here?"

Bunny scratched his head. "Well, ya, er, gave me... yer staff...," he said, looking back at the others, who were currently in the room. He hadn't told them what had happened yet. Jack stared at him for a while, and suddenly piped up, "Oh, yeah! I did. I did do that. I think. Did I?" Jack's attention was diverted to his toes for a while, and there was a moment of silence while he tested wriggling them. He then looked at Bunny. "Oh, hey Bunny! When did you get here?"

Bunny sighed. This was going to take a long time. "So ya gave me yer staff, an' went runnin' off to North America." Behind him, Tooth giggled. The story probably sounded stupid right now. Jack furrowed his brows, and then nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, I did. And then I went to go see the sun." A dreamy look came over him. "I think Bunny picked me up from there." He looked at the Pooka. "Do you know Bunny?" Bunnymund resisted the urge to plant his face into the bed, and said, "No, I don't know Bunny." "Well that's stupid, because you look a lot like him." Jack reached out and pulled on his ear. "_Are_ you Bunny? Oh my god, you are!" he exclaimed, face lighting up.

This time, Bunny _did _facepalm.

Tooth came to his rescue. "Jack? Hey, Jack?" When the teen's attention was finally diverted, he gasped. "You're flying!" Tooth's face bore a bemused smile. "Yes, I'm... flying." "Hey, can you teach me?" "You already know how to fly, Jack." The look on his face sent them into laughing fits, and Sandy made a shape of a camera on top of his head. North boomed out his jolly laughter, saying, "You said it, Sandy!" Jack then looked over to Sandy, and poked him. "Are you made of sand? You are! You are, aren't you?" he smiled, and then turned to North. "Whoa... it's Santa," he whispered loudly, which Bunny found hilarious, along with Tooth. North blinked, and then pat his head. "Yes, I am Santa Clause, Jacky boy!"

Jack had a look of elation on his face. "You came," he breathed. "And it's not even Christmas." Jack bounced on the bed, something that was surely not possible if he was in his right mind, and smiled. "You came! That's so cool! You came here for me! Do you have presents?" Jack's face suddenly fell, and he bounced twice on the bed before stopping. "I should have gotten you cookies. Oh man." North laughed. "No cookies necessary, Jack. Ve are all family! I give you present because you are Jack," he said, poking the teen in the chest. Jack's mouth hung agape. "I'm not on the naughty list?" he asked, with round eyes. Bunny scoffed. "Of course you are, mate. Yer jus' an exception, 'cause yer, y'know, part o' a family." Oh, how Sandy would tease him for this. "That's great!" he yelled, once again bouncing on the bed. "That's great, because I thought I'd be on the naughty list for what I did in Antarctica! This is awesome!"

The four others exchanged looks. More secrets that Jack was hiding.

Tooth put a delicate hand on his shoulder to steady him. "What did you do in Antarctica, Jack?" she asked carefully. Jack wasn't fazed in the slightest. "So, see, when I was about a hundred years old, or something like that, I got lonely, and then I went to Antarctica because there was no one there. I think that was about the time when I tried living in an ice cave. It was really pretty in there..." He drifted off. Sandy made a shape of a question mark in front of his face, and Jack went back on topic. "And then I think I made icicles. And sometimes snowmen, or at least snow-children because adults are no fun." He pouted. "I'm not just an expression," he said, thrusting the sentence at them like a challenge. Bunny opened his mouth, but Jack went on.

"And then I made snowballs and a lot of other stuff but I think the icicles were the most important. They were fun to try and eat, but I think they were important because they were pointy. I remember the moon wasn't there and I think I got mad and sad and lonely at the same time." Tooth had moved over to the other side of the bed and had put her hand on top of Jack's. "Then what happened, sweet tooth?" Jack tilted his head. "I think... I think I made them pointier. They looked like teeth." He turned to Tooth. "You like teeth, right? Why do you like teeth?" Before she could answer, he dove back into the story. "And I think I was crying. Maybe, I don't remember that clearly. And I think I cut myself."

The simultaneous gasps from the others went unnoticed.

"I think they left scars. I'm not sure, actually. Are they still there?" Jack asked to no one in particular. "Do you guys want to check?" Bunny didn't know what he was doing when, without a word, he reached out to Jack's other hand that wasn't occupied by Tooth's. "More to the poin', kiddo," he searched Jack's eyes, "Do ya want us to?"

Somewhere, behind the slowly fading delirium, Jack's eyes trembled. He was screaming, "No, no, please don't do that, please, Bunny, just leave me alone! Why do you care now? Just-just go away!"

But of course he didn't say that out loud.

Instead, his medication made him say, "Sure."

And he...

He rolled up his sleeves.

His mind howled at him, "How could you be so stupid?! Put it back down! Stop it!" But they had already seen, the white and red and black scars that littered his arms, and he was just sitting there, stupidly, as they looked at him with horrified eyes that brimmed with tears in the case of Tooth.

"What?" he said.

Tooth was the first to react verbally. "Oh, sweet tooth!" she cried as she flung her arms around him. Jack looked at her. "You're hugging me," he commented dumbly, but he was no longer smiling. The medication was wearing off. Sandy had been the next, golden tendrils hovering around the boy's frail form, as if he was afraid of touching him. North remained silent and rested a hand on Jack's snowy hair, eyes dulled with sorrow. Bunny was the last to react, perhaps because he had expected Jack to be every part of the happy teenage hellion he appeared to be.

Behind the fragile mask of ice Jack had crafted out of three hundred years of isolation and neglect was a scared child, with no sense of what he was to do and why he was there. And Bunny had been fooled so easily.

The Pooka unconsciously grasped the scarred arm harder, and was surprised when Jack ripped both arms away from them. "But you guys weren't supposed to see that," he snapped, a look of panic flitting across his face before fading into a dazed expression. "Jack...," murmured North, but was interrupted by the tears streaming down Jack's face. "I'm crying," Jack said, apparently having surprised himself. "Why am I crying? I think I'm sleepy," he declared, wiping the tears off his face and flopping back into a lying position in the bed. "Jack, mate-" "Leave me alone!" Bunny flinched, hearing some of the old Jack's temper flaring up at him. At them. At all of them; even himself, for spilling that secret. Sandy sent a thread of golden sand to him, sorrow apparent on his face.

But even when Jack had fell asleep, they didn't leave.

* * *

**So... yeah.**

**...was it okay?  
**

**70 reviews next!  
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	5. Filling in the Gaps

**Hey y'all. I'm still sick and now there are family problems but that's okay because I have more time to write. I give my parents the silent treatment; hey, if they're going to fight, I'm not talkin'. So far, we've at the least _tried_ to stop. _Tried._  
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**Well, at least the midterms are over.  
**

**But yeah, here's kind of a filler chapter because of aforementioned problems, and plus I really wanted to do this before.  
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**On another note, have you _seen_ the word count last chapter?! 2k+?! I got carried awayyyy; this time as well, it's 2k+.  
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**I'll need a little break from writing so this story won't be updated for about two days or so but I'll try to have the next chapter up if I have the time to and if there are 90 reviews. (bad Hana-chan stop being greedy :P)  
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**READ THIS BEFORE YOU READ THE STORY: There is a flashback in this, and it's JUST like the movie; in fact, this chapter may be a bit too long because I added so much detail. Also, I may refer to Bunny as "Aster", his middle name, from now on.  
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* * *

Jack was dreaming.

As Sandy floated somewhere above Incheon, he felt it. It was only natural, as he was the Guardian of Dreams. This dream was special, however; it was a memory rather than a dream, really, and he flew over to the North Pole while leaving the sand to do its job; he had practiced on controlling it from a considerable distance away ever since the incident with Pitch happened.

Sandy flew through the window just as the dream above Jack's mind began to materialize. The Sandman stayed by Jack's side as he went through his dream, and when Jack's dream had faded into the murky depth of unconsciousness, Sandy arose, shaken.

He had to find the others.

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

"A dream? Did he wake up, Sandy?" asked North as he saw the Sandman form a shape of a sleeping Jack with a thought bubble overhead. Sandy shook his head. Jack had stirred a bit, but he had never woken up. "A memory, huh?" Tooth was apparently the most interested in this; even though it wasn't necessarily a childhood memory for Jack, it was a memory nonetheless and Jack was forever stuck in half-childhood so it was a childhood memory in a weird sort of way. "Wha' can he be possibly be dreamin' abou' when he's unconscious?" Bunny scoffed, scowl fading when Sandy made a shape of Pitch's shadow with his sand. "He's dreamin' about how he met Pitch?" A shake of a head. This time, an image of a staff next to it. "Pitch... stole his staff before?" asked Tooth quizzically. This was when Sandy realized that they had no idea of what had happened. Sand fuming from his ears, he made a final picture of an Easter egg, and a calendar flipping back one year.

The silence was deafening.

"He's dreamin' 'bout wha' happened las' Easter?" Bunny asked quietly, his suspicions becoming confirmed when Sandy nodded his head. Tooth rubbed her shoulder uncomfortably. "Sandy, I'm not sure we want to recall that." Sandy shook his head with a determined look on his face. He was going to let them know exactly what had happened during those gaps they missed. "Sandy-" North's protest was lost on him as he forced them to sleep, golden tendrils having snuck up behind them. He then focused on channeling Jack's dream into them exactly the way it had been.

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

Tooth, the ever-iridescent Tooth Fairy, was a bit disheveled, to say at the least. Where it had been morning back in the North Pole, this dream- memory- took place at midnight. Blinking her eyes to get them adjusted to the dark, she could just make out one of her mini-fairies flitting towards a house. 'Not just any mini-fairy,' she realized, 'but Baby Tooth.' As her eyes began to make out more shapes, she could see Jack flying with Baby Tooth, along with Sophie in his arms. "Jack! Baby Tooth!" she called, but they wouldn't answer. Approaching them, she gasped as they flew right through her. Tooth could only watch as the dream went on. She looked to Bunny. Bunny snorted as he saw Jack accidentally drop Sophie on the floor, and actually laughed when Sophie kept on sleeping. "Not the mos' careful guy in the world, eh?" he chuckled, even though he knew Jack couldn't hear him. After all, this was only a dream.

As Jack shut the window once outside, the three Guardians were forced to follow. Bunny and North stumbled, not used to the feeling of walking on air. "We should get back," Aster heard Jack saying. Just then, a voice- a little girl's voice- called out; _Jack! _Bunny was as startled as Jack was as he whipped his head around, searching for the source of sound. "Th-that voice... I know that voice," he mumbled dazedly. _Jack! _Jack launched off to find the source of the sound. Bunny grumbled. "Tha' curiosity of his is gonna kill him someday," he muttered as he watched the scene unfold, Tooth and North silently agreeing. Jack landed on a house and flew off when he heard another cry of his name.

_Jack? _the voice asked just as the teen reached an opening with an old bedpost out in the clear. North wasn't exactly on best terms with the Boogeyman, but he knew well enough to know what his lair looked like when it opened up anywhere. He held his breath as Jack began to approach the bed frame. Baby Tooth took hold of his hoodie and tried to pull him back, but Jack brushed her off lightly, saying, "Don't worry, there's still time." He banged away at the rotting wood until there was a big enough space for him to enter. _Jack?_ And that was the last straw. Jack dropped down the hole, Baby Tooth worriedly following.

Bunny, Tooth and North followed them as Baby Tooth pulled at Jack's hoodie more frantically. "Baby Tooth, come on," pleaded Jack, "I have to find out what that is." He looked away for a moment and his eyes widened at what he saw. Toothiana gasped in horror.

Cages. Thousands of cages. All filled with ten to twenty mini-fairies.

Jack flew over to one of the cages. "Shh," he whispered as they began to twitter excitedly. "Keep it down. I'll get you out as soon as I-" _Jack? Jack! _"He turned as thousands of golden memory containers came into his view. "As I can...," he trailed off, dropping down to the humongous pile as he started to look through it frantically. Baby Tooth's pleas were ignored as Jack dug through, checking each face to find that missing link to his past.

"Looking for something?"

The Guardians (Jack included) gasped as Pitch's shadow loomed on a wall. Jack growled and shot a burst of ice at the shadow, quickly giving chase when it (or maybe it was a he, if it was actually Pitch himself) slithered over to a dizzy and seemingly endless set of stairways. Pitch laughed. "Don't be afraid, Jack," he said as he leisurely walked on top of an archway. Jack caught sight of him and was poised to strike. "I'm not going to hurt you," Pitch continued. Jack flew over to follow him at a safe distance.

"Afraid? I'm not afraid of you," retorted Jack. "Maybe not," Pitch replied, "but you are afraid of something." Tooth clasped her hands together nervously, Bunny's fur bristled and North raised an eyebrow. Jack was afraid... of what?

Jack narrowed his eyes. "You think so, huh?" Pitch only laughed, putting the frost child's nerves on edge. "I know so. It's the one thing I always know; people's greatest fears," the Boogeyman grinned, turning around to face Jack. "Yours is that no one will _ever_ believe in you." Jack flinched in shock and hurt, his stance wavering for a millisecond; and that millisecond was all Pitch needed to take that fear emanating from Jack and drop him through the shadows.

"Whoa!" Jack cried, his voice trembling slightly with poorly masked terror. He scrambled to grab his staff in the darkness as Pitch continued to taunt him. "And worst of all, you're afraid you'll never know why," he leered, and Tooth finally burst free and tried to grab Jack and pull him back towards the others; but she could only watch as her hand went right through. Bunny tightened his fist as he saw Jack's expression. So full of terror and hurt and _fear, _his mask of happiness having completely slipped off.

Heavily breathing, Jack leaped right through North and into another shadow, soon coming to a dead end. "Why you? Why were you chosen," spoke the voice, chilling all who were watching the scene unfold, "to be like this? Well, fear not..." Jack turned around to come face to face with Pitch, gasping in wide-eyed terror as the man loomed over him. Pitch's eyes gleamed. "...for the answer to that is right here," he grinned, holding out a memory box with a face of a brown haired boy on it. For a moment, Aster was thrown off by how different Jack and the boy was, and he was almost positively sure that Pitch was trying to rip Jack off with another person's memory. But all that vanished when North tapped his shoulder to look closer; and there it was, a grin that _wasn't fake_, and was so_ Jack Frost _that he didn't - couldn't - argue.

"Do you want them, Jack?" asked Pitch, his voice soft, "your memories?" Jack still looked as if he couldn't believe all that was happening, as if he couldn't believe that all he ever wanted-a _purpose for existing_-was right in front of his eyes. He reached out, and hesitated; in that moment, Pitch pulled away and he was gone, Jack gasping and giving chase once more. He ran down the stair ways, quickly pointing his staff at his own shadow that Pitch had taken hostage of. "Everything you wanted to know, in this little box," Pitch taunted, "Why did you end up like this? Unseen, unable to reach out to anyone?" North tried to swipe at the man, to make him stop spouting hurtful words -_ that were all so painfully true -_ at the boy, but scrunched his face up in frustration when his hand went harmlessly through.

"You want the answers so badly, you want to grab them and fly off with them," said Pitch. Jack turned around and started backing away, many shadows of Pitch beginning to surround him. "You're afraid of what the Guardians will think. You're afraid of disappointing them," sneered Pitch, and the three observers' mouths fell open from shock. That was what had made Jack hesitate to take his memories - all that he ever wanted? Their attention was snapped back to the Boogeyman as he spoke once more. "Well, let me ease your mind about one thing; they'll never accept you, not reall-" he was interrupted by Jack's distressed cry. "Stop it, stop it!" he yelled, locks of snow white hair clutched in his hands. Pitch continued as if nothing had happened. "After all, you're not one of them."

Jack began to rebuild his fa_ç_ade of bravery, albeit a clearly see-through one. "You don't know what I am," he snapped, voice wavering. Pitch scoffed. "Of course I do, you're Jack Frost! You make a mess wherever you go; Why, you're doing it right now," he tossed the sentence at him, along with the memory box. Jack caught the golden container, eyes widening in realization and horror as he looked back at Pitch. "What did you do?" he breathed. The man laughed, fading into the shadows. "More to the point Jack, what did _you_ do?" Jack rushed into the shadow with a cry, staff glowing and he took a step back when it hit nothing. Gasping, Jack ran back, stopping short when he reached a solid metal door. "Baby Tooth!" he cried desperately, turning around to try and find a different way out. His feet crunched on something, and cerulean eyes trembled as he looked down and saw remains of thousands, millions, of broken Easter eggs. "Happy Easter, Jack," echoed Pitch's voice one last time against the tunnels. As the three Guardians watched in pity and remorse, Jack uttered one word.

"No..."

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**Sooo... I'm sorry, but I had to cut it into two chapters; I'll try to post the next tomorrow but it might not work because of said family problems, sorry!  
**

**So, I need your opinion! IMPORTANT! Do you guys want me to put in the self-harm from Jack's POV (through a memory)? Leave your opinion in a review!  
**

**Okay, bye guys. 90 reviews next, and then I might post it tomorrow.  
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**Sorry I'm missing all my cheery attitude.  
**


	6. Filling in the Gaps Part 2

**SSSSSSSO I'M BACK GUYS AND THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS**

**...*sigh* I tried.**

**There are still problems with my family but it's okay, BECAUSE I GET TO UPDATE TODAY YAY FOR YOU AND ME BECAUSE I CAN FORGET ABOUT THOSE JERKS WHILE I WRITE THIS AND I LOVE YOU ALL THANKS FOR ALL THE SUPPORT YOU GUYS *sob*  
**

***cough cough* So here you go, another chapter. I know, creative title. 120 for next chapter! We can do this, guys!  
**

**IMPORTANT!: I added a bit to the flashback in the story, just to fit the self-harm thing. I didn't change much, just added a line or two, other than that, it's still painstakingly accurate. The italics are for the Guardians of the present (the ones watching the memory dream) and the non-italics are the memory itself. Also, people wanted me to put the self-harm from Jack's POV in, so I'll show it next chapter.  
**

**Enjoy!**

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_Tooth, Aster and North managed to follow Jack out of the tunnel just as they saw Bunny - last year's Bunny, they reminded themselves, not the current one, - being walked through by a little boy with brown hair._

"T-they don' see me," Bunny breathed, "They don' see me." Jack stood sorrowfully a few feet away from him from the back, a worried expression on his face. He turned around to see North. "Jack! Vhere vere you? Ze nightmares attacked ze tunnels, zhey smashed every egg, crushed every basket, nothing made it to ze surface." There was a sorrowful pause. Tooth flew over to them. "Jack!" She looked down, and gasped at the sight of the memory box in his hand. "Where did you get that?" Jack opened his mouth to explain. "I was- it's-" Tooth wasn't done. "Where's baby tooth?" Jack tried to explain, but the words got stuck in his throat and he **couldn't get them out**. His face fell as Tooth backed away, hands brought up to her mouth in horror. "Oh, Jack. What have you done?"

_Tooth flew over to herself and tried, tried oh so hard to pull herself away, to put the words back into where they belonged - nowhere. She cried as her memory self looked at Jack with disdain._

"**Dat** vas vhy you veren't there? You vere vith **Pitch**?" North asked incredulously, a look of distaste apparent on his features. "No! Listen, listen," Jack sighed, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean for this to happen-" He never got to finish as a voice behind him cut him off. "He 'as ta go."

_Bunny's ears drooped. He didn't want to watch this, not again, not ever again, but he couldn't bring himself to look away._

"We should_ neva'_ have trusted you!" he yelled, bringing up his fist but never meeting Jack's face. The teen backed away, frightened. Aster deflated and said, "Easter is... new beginnin's. New life. Easter's abou' hope." He took one last glance at Jack, filled with blame. "An' now it's gone."

Jack looked at Tooth and North for solace; but he found none as they turned away from him. Features hardening, he flew away, leaving the matryoshka of North abandoned on the ground.

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

_The Guardians had no time to lament over their own hasty assumptions as they were pulled to Antarctica, where they saw Jack._

Jack rushed up to the end of a cliff, about to throw the memory box over. It was all because of this accursed thing...! But it was as if there was a imaginary wall was blocking him; he couldn't let it fly from his hand. Not when he could find out...**everything**... "Rrgh...!" he growled, a pained look on his face. He sighed, absently pulling up his sleeves and tracing his scars. He stared into the distance, where one could just make out the outline of a hidden cave of ice. "Maybe I should...," he trailed off.

_North felt his heart ache again; how could they have left Jack alone, when he had done nothing wrong? How could they have done this to the point of... of this happening?_

"I thought this might happen." Jack was jolted out of his daze by the voice, sleeves dropping back down. "They didn't believe in you. I was just trying to show you that. But I understand." Jack's face contorted in pain and he turned around, running towards Pitch and shooting a bolt of ice at him. "You don't understand anything!" he screamed. Pitch blocked the attack with his nightmare sand. "Oh?!" he said, a hint of disbelief in his voice, "I don't know what it's like to be cast out?" Jack cried in fury, firing a shot in mid-jump. The attack collided with more nightmare sand, creating a dust cloud of sorts and fogging up his view.

_Bunny had a hard time watching all this. How... how had the kid made it through this? It pained him to see what Jack was feeling, even behind that center of fun._

"To not be believed in?!" continued Pitch, slowly coming into view behind Jack. "To long for a... a family?" Jack whipped around, staff raised, but almost immediately let it loosen a bit when he found the Boogeyman completely unarmed. How did he know...? Pitch took this as a sign to continue. "All those years in the shadows, I thought, No one else knows what it feels like. But now I see how I was wrong." Pitch gestured to Jack. "You don't have to be alone, Jack. I believe in you. And I know children will, too!" Jack was shell-shocked. "In me?"

_Tooth's tears had long since spilled over. He looked... so disbelieving, as if he dared not believe it; while any other one of them would have accepted it as a plain factual thing._

"Yes! Look at what we can do!" Pitch said, looking up at a giant ice sculpture, fused with black sand. "What goes better than cold and dark? We can make them believe! We can give them a world where, everything, **everything**, is-" "Pitch Black?" Jack asked, the signs of a refusal sparking in his eyes. Pitch paused, then corrected his mistake. "And Jack Frost, too. They'll believe in both of us." It was too late, however. Jack had already seen the flaws in Pitch's 'perfect' plan. "No, they'll **fear** both of us," Jack said. "And that's not what I want." He swiped his hand, and turned around. "Now for the last time, leave me alone."

_The three Guardians were shocked. Everything he ever wanted, everything he would need, all laid out in front of him, and Jack had refused. He was brave, perhaps even more braver than any one of them when it came to doing what was right._

Pitch was not pleased. His face twisted into a scowl. "Very well. You want to be left alone; done! But first..." There was a familiar squeak, and Jack gasped, turning back around in a flash. "Baby Tooth!"

_Tooth was watching with wide eyes; this was a new low, even for Pitch. She seethed as Baby Tooth struggled in Pitch's grasp._

Jack rushed forward, but was stopped by Pitch's words. "The staff, Jack!" Pitch demanded. "You have a bad habit of interfering. Now. Hand it over and I'll let her go."

_They watched as Jack paused, hesitation evident in his eyes. Tooth was torn, flying from Jack to Baby Tooth, while Bunny and North grit their teeth as he saw Pitch smirking. All attention was swung back to Jack as he flipped the staff over, handing it to Pitch.  
_

Jack glared. "Alright. Now let her go." Pitch seemed to consider it, and then-

"No."

_Tooth screeched at Pitch, anger flooding her common sense and drowning out the fact that she could not touch him. She flew at him, growing frustrated with each fist that went through the Boogeyman. Bunny would have liked nothing more than to hurt, maim or kill their sworn enemy at the time, and North's hands continuously grasped at the swords that weren't there with him in the dream._

Pitch grinned triumphantly. "You said you wanted to be alone. So BE ALONE!" Baby Tooth struggled in the Boogeyman's arms, pulled her head back, and sunk her needle-like beak into the gray skin of the Boogeyman. Pitch let out an outraged cry, and threw the mini-fairy hard at an icy wall, down a snowy ravine. "No!" yelled Jack, turning just in time to see Pitch break his staff in half. A bolt of pain, worse than anything he'd ever felt (physically, at least), fired through his veins. "**Augh!**" he cried, and didn't even have time to groan in pain as a whirl of nightmare sand threw him down the crevasse as well. He tumbled down onto the bottom, lying there, looking incredibly broken beyond repair, just like the two pieces of Jack's staff that soon fell through the air.

For a few cruel seconds, Jack's eyes were closed and his breathing had stopped. Then he was back on his feet, stumbling and still hurting, but managing to make his way to Baby Tooth. "Baby Tooth. You alright?" he whispered, and the mini-fairy sneezed in his hands. Jack sighed. "Sorry. All I can do is keep you cold." He closed his eyes, refusing to let his tears fall. "Pitch was right. I make a mess of everything."

_The Guardians (sans Sandy and Jack) surrounded the Jack of an year ago, wishing they could have comforted him. They watched as Baby Tooth perked up, and climbed into his hoodie pocket. Jack took this as a sign to get warm, and rested his head tiredly on the icy wall._

**Jack? Jack! **Cerulean eyes widened in shock, and Jack flung himself off the wall onto another with a cry, backing up to find the voice but looking toward his pocket as he saw it glowing.** Jack! **the voice cried again, and Jack looked to Baby Tooth, who only nodded. He placed a shaking finger to the blue diamond in the center of the box.

_Aster, Tooth, and North all let out a startled yelp as they were yanked into another memory. At first, there were only bits and pieces of them;_

A motherly figure strolled with a little girl, laughing as her son jumped ahead for the Easter Egg Hunt. "Come on, Jack, you can't have fun all the time."

_Bunny blinked. He remembered this kid - he was the one that always found the most eggs but gave most of them away to his sister because she had so little. At moments, he would even manage to catch sight of his ears or the tip of his paw sticking out from a bush, giving him a run for his money when trying to escape unseen. Seeing Jack with brown hair and chocolate eyes was shocking, to say at the least._

"Jack, get down from there!" This time, it was his little sister speaking to him, with a worried tone but a smile on her face as Jack flung precariously from a branch, laughing when he made funny faces.

_Tooth couldn't help but laugh; that was the time Jackson Overland fell off a tree and knocked his last baby teeth out; a front canine. It was so fresh in her mind, that day when she received the teeth and slightly mourned for the end of this childhood. Little had she known, it had never quite ended._

Jack was now donning a pair of antlers on his head, making the little children next to him laugh. "Jack, you're funny, Jack!"

_Pure happiness practically emanated from the children in an aura, and North could see the joy in Jack's eyes when he saw their smiles. It was amazing, how good he was with children of all ages, unlike the others who just did their jobs and didn't really bother to interact with each child individually._

The scene shifted to a winter day, almost Christmas. As Jack was pulled along by his sister, he looked back at his mom. "Be careful," she said. Jack chuckled. "We will."

_What they saw next made them all gasp. From a cluster of cheerful memories, this frightening one was certainly a change._

Jack was on the ice, just having taken off his skates. "It's okay, it's okay," he assured gently, "don't look down, just... look at me." Jack's sister trembled with fear, struggling to retain her balance on her skates. "Jack, I'm scared." "I know, I know. B-but you're going to be alright. You're not going to fall in. Uh, we're going to have a little fun!" This wasn't enough to convince the smaller Overland child. "No, we're not!" Jack mocked a hurt face. "Would I lie to you?" "Yes! You always play tricks!" Jack laughed shakily. "Oh, alright, well, not, not this time. I promise, I promise, y-you're gonna be fine. You have to believe in me."

_Those last six words made them all tear up again. They doubted that his sister would ever forget about Jackson Overland, but she most likely hadn't believed in anyone named Jack Frost._

A rush of breath escaped her as her brother's comforting words worked in calming her. Jack looked around wildly for an idea, his eyes falling on his shepherd's staff. "You, you want to play a game? We're gonna play hopscotch. Like we do everyday. It's as easy as one..." He placed a foot carefully on the ice, wincing when it cracked. Deciding it was just a light crack, he placed his weight on it, flailing around and earning a laugh from his sister. "Two, three!" he said as he jumped, landing on thick ice. He knelt down, picking up the staff. "Alright," he breathed. "Now it's your turn. One..." His sister gasped in horror as the ice began to crack below her when she moved. Jack was quick to assure her. "That's it, that's it... two.." He reached out and hooked her around the waist with the crook in the staff. "Three!" He flung his sister onto the thicker ice, falling down himself while sliding a bit back.

_North laughed loudly, and Tooth giggled shakily, assured that the worst was over. Bunny, however, wasn't sure. Why would this memory have been shown if it wasn't a precious moment to Jack? His fears were confirmed when his ears picked up the sound of many miniscule cracks appearing when Jack tried to stand. The other' smiles had gone the moment they realized that Bunny wasn't laughing with them._

Jack laughed in relief, and for a moment, all was well.

And then the ice below him cracked.

_Tooth screamed, and North and Bunny let out cries of distress as they saw Jack drop like a stone, plunging into the water.  
_

He barely had time to hear his sister shout one last time, "Jack!" before he sunk down into the murky depth of the lake. He closed his eyes as water filled his lungs and his muscles went into shock. His hair began to whiten in the moonlight, and his eyes, no longer brown -

Opened, flicking down to look at Baby Tooth; they were back in the ravine. "Did, did you see that?" he ignored the little shake from her head, "I-It was me! I had a family! I had a sister! I saved her!" Jack paused, realization dawning in his eyes. He looked up at the moon. "...that's why you chose me. I'm. I'm a guardian." There was no answer, but for once, Jack didn't need any. "We have to get out of here," he muttered, his eyes swiveling to the remains of the staff. He put together the pieces, and groaned when they crunched back off. Not willing to give up just yet, he crashed the ends back together, eyes screwed shut with concentration.

_The three Guardians gasped as a bright blue light shone from the cracks, soon making the staff whole again. This went to show that Jack wasn't exactly powerless without it; just a bit weaker. They watched as he shot out with the wind in his hair, not completely whole himself but there was a bit of him that was happy, even without the fake smiles and jokes. Everything around them began to waver dangerously out of proportion, and they realized that they weren't following Jack anymore. "Wha's happenin'?" yelled Bunny as white noise began to intrude. "We're done watching the memory; we're waking up!" informed Tooth, hanging onto both of them.__  
_

They all awoke with a start. Bunny was the first one to recover even slightly. "Wha'... wha' was tha'?" he asked rhetorically, shocked at the overwhelming memories they had received. Tooth was the second, flying up off the floor they had fallen asleep on. "I need to see Jack," she mumbled, shooting off to Jack's room, Bunny, North, and now Sandy hot on her trail.

They burst into the sleeping teen's room and was instantly around him. "Jack," said North, but could not find any other words to say. Bunny ruffled his hair while Tooth just held onto his pale hand as he slept, Sandy watching over all of them.

It was a while until they left again for their duties, but this time, Tooth would not leave. "My mini-fairies have been preparing for this ever since I told them Jack was sick," she told them. "I just want to make sure he'll be okay." She knew, though, he would never really completely okay. Not after three hundred years. But she could try at the least.

She was asleep when Jack's eyelids fluttered open.

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**Ahhh sorry for the (semi-)cliffhanger! All the reason to go for 120! (I have most of it written down, but I don't have much time tomorrow so we'll see. On a sidenote, I must be really greedy right now)**

**Thanks for the support and look out for Jack's POV next chapter!  
**

**Byez!  
**


	7. Un-Melting Warmth

**I'm baaaack!**

**Fortunately my situation is getting better. We laughed and went bowling. And I lost but that was okay 'cause my dad won and my mom was second and I wasn't really good at bowling anyway.  
**

**So everything is okay - almost. It'll take time but I want to be optimistic, so there. Thanks for all the encouraging comments, guys... it makes me so much more inclined to make my life better. Not being cheesy here.**

**We're almost done with this story~  
**

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The first thing Jack saw after he managed to force open his eyes was Tooth, who was sleeping in a chair next to his bed. Then he looked down and saw that his hoodie was gone. Gone. His only protection from those scars that glared up at him, replaced by a plain white t-shirt that left his arms bare. 'Oh god,_' _he thought.

'They _know._"

What he did during the influence of some anesthetic medicine came rushing back to him; confessing his loneliness, showing them the marks of the unnaturally sharp icicles he had created, ruining the three-hundred years' worth of his façade. All that work - for **nothing**, gone in a few seconds.

He groaned softly, burying his face in his hands. A moment later, he sighed and traced the scars with a pale finger absentmindedly, noting the fact that they still faintly stung. He still remembered getting them...

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

_Jack Frost._

_That was all I knew for a while. Literally. And when I flew around for a few decades, I only had that shred of evidence to know I was alive. Existent. Real. But real people interacted with other people. Gave each other high-fives, looked and saw them, heard them...!_

_It was around 1816 when I started to do things that I would not be proud of later.  
_

_It didn't start out as something that serious, actually. I convinced myself I needed some "alone time", like a normal person. How, I have no idea. It wasn't like I was ever **not** alone. So I shut myself in a cave that I had dug out myself (but there was the wind to help me, really) and stayed there. For how long, well, I don't know that either.  
_

_At first, it was okay. In fact, I actually had fun practicing with snowball targets, eating icicles like they were candy, designing my cape and colonial clothes in frost. But in a while, like any other normal person (because I was normal, I was completely **normal**), I got bored.  
_

_So I made snow people. Not balls of snow placed on top of each other with pebble eyes, no, they were carefully carved of ice, every detail in their face and every fold in their clothing made to be **real**. I was set on making an entire family. A mom with welcoming arms, a dad with stern-but-caring eyes, and a little sister with a smile so bright that it lit up the entire cave. I was happy, jumping around and avidly telling them tales of how I initiated snowball fights, and how funny the kids looked when they slipped on ice, and how happy they were when they saw the snow (and maybe one day they wouldn't walk through me). And I imagined they talked back to me. "You're so funny, Jack!" giggled the sister; "Now, when did any of us give you permission to do that?" laughed the mom; the dad just chuckled.  
_

_But then I got too absorbed in imagining them, too intent on making them realistic, that the happy family twisted and morphed into something that couldn't fit me anymore. "Jack Frost is just an expression," chastised the mom (not my mom, not possibly **my** mom), and the father had chuckled at the sister's attempts at trying to explain that Jack Frost (but that's me) was not real. I felt mad and hurt and betrayed and I was** furious**, because** I** made them, how dare they turn against me, how **dare they-**  
_

_So I kicked them.  
_

_I punched them, hit them with my staff, **demolished **them until they were nothing but a messy pile of icy shards that quickly started to turn back into snow. I fell down, not able to keep the salty liquid from falling. Looking sideways, I saw the sister (she's **mine**, **my** sister), and crawled over to her, to apologize, or comfort, cry to her, maybe. But all that shaking, that temper tantrum must have weakened the snow, and when I touched her, she fell apart (**nonono**) and I could only watch as she crumbled, joining the rest of them on the floor. A new layer of something washed over me, something like fear but combined with anger and mixed with sadness;  
_

_**Guilt**.  
_

_And I **broke**.  
_

_I reached, with a shaky hand, out to a icy shard that hadn't crumbled yet, the piece of ice forming into an icicle in my grasp. I willed it to grow sharper; and the frost heeded my wishes. It climbed up the icicle like an infection, curling and twisting it. It formed in crystals on two sides, carving away from the others. I loosened my grasp on the icicle (that wasn't really an icicle anymore because it was a bit too sharp to be an icicle) when it started to cut into my hand. I looked at what had formed in my hand;  
_

_A blade.  
_

_I brought the icicle down on my wrist, pressing slowly at first and blinking at the weeping cut it left in its wake. It wasn't like the kind of pain I felt when I was walked through (I'm** not** **normal**) but it was somehow... Refreshing. Like bloodletting some poison coursing through my veins. And it was just so **refreshing** that I slit my arms many more times, basking in how **good** it felt, like some kind of weight was being lifted off my shoulders.  
_

_I briefly wondered if I was dying. It would be so much better, for the world that suffered from blizzards and for myself; it would be my one true good deed and I felt **proud.**  
_

_ It was just at that moment that I decided to stare at my newly formed wounds. The blood was just so… pretty. All my immortal life, my cheeks had never colored from the cold, my fingers never frostbitten (because you're not human, you're a **monster** that kills people). My skin was so pale, and it was as if a red rose had bloomed in the middle of a snowfield._

_But then the moonlight, the goddamn **moonlight** streamed in through the ice blocking the entrance of the cave.  
_

_And then the cut started to close, and no matter how hard I willed for the blood not to go back, it just kept flowing back into my bloodstream, and suddenly my skin was pale and littered with scars. As if that rose had died, shriveled from the cold, leaving only dead petals.  
_

_I stared at the scars, wishing, wishing, that the rose would come back. Tears fell on the scars and it was like rubbing salt into my wounds both mentally and physically (why was I so weak, why was I crying? Surely I didn't even deserve to feel remorse, right?), the snow around me dyed red but not as pretty as it would have been against my skin. I looked to the blurred shape of the moon through the ice. "Why?" I screamed, grasping the blade tightly in my hand and ignoring the blood that dripped down through my fingers because this time it **hurt** - "Why? Why don't I ever get to choose **anything**?"  
_

_"Why can't I choose to be seen? To be felt and heard; to be **known**?! Can't I even choose to **die**? **Is that too much for you?**" I slammed the sharp edge of the blade into the floor of the cave, hunching over it and sobbing.  
_

_When I was sure the moonlight had gone away, I decided to let the ice covering the entrance break. In an instant, the wind was there (my only friend, my only friend because I couldn't bear to think I had none) and curling around my arms, and then pushing me a bit forcibly. I chuckled, the sound rattling in my throat. "I, I know, I know. I... I promise I won't do it again."_

_Lies. I continued for two hundred years more.  
_

_Eventually, the wind became more accepting. If that was what I wanted, it would let me do so. I continued for a **very** long time.  
_

_And then the Guardians came.  
_

**~❄§*UN-MELTING*§❄~**

"Jack?" The teen looked up, but not too abruptly, at Tooth, who had woken up. "Hey," he croaked, throat hoarse from not being used for nearly three days. He tried to flash a grin, but it ended up being strained and looking like he had just swallowed a whole pint of lemon juice. Tooth slowly rose from her seat, as if Jack was some kind of frightened animal that would run away the moment she left; and she was probably right, except that running was not an option from how weak he was. "I'll. Um. Be right back. Okay? Just, just stay there. Please," the Tooth Fairy whispered, closing the door after walking backwards, out of the room.

Jack looked around the room and noticed that the windows were open. _Wide _open. Even though the cold was streaming in and practically refrigerating the room, this time, Jack welcomed him. It was who he was, really, and even though he had tried to abandon it and had somehow _liked abandoning it, _he now realized how important it was. It was, in a sense, a part of him as much as his eyes or hands were. He looked over to the other side of the room and saw his staff, leaning on the wall on the other side of the room. Jack shuffled and winced as pain shot up his leg, but tried his best to ignore it as he slid both legs out from under the covers and down on the floor. He stumbled over to the conduit of his power, his hand outstretched and fingertips brushing the staff. Jack yelped when one of his legs gave way and he tumbled to the floor, staff clattering down. The noise seemed to summon all the others somehow, and he soon found them in the doorway, door having banged open and Bunny in the front of the group.

Aster saw Jack near the window and panicked. "Jack, wait, mate!"

Jack struggled to get back up. "Relax, cotton tail," he huffed, "I'm not going anywhere." He gave up on trying to stand again and just reached over to the staff, grasping it firmly in his hand. The wind was suddenly around him, welcoming him and ruffling his hair affectionately. "Hey, wind," he whispered as he floated a few inches up with his friend's help. He was about to fly back over to the bed but a jolt of pain shook him, and with a cry, he fell back down with a painful _thud. _"Jack!" In a flash, they were all around him, carefully lifting him and lying him back down on the bed.

A pained groan escaped his throat. "I feel like I got hit by a truck," he chuckled, but it didn't lift the mood like he had hoped it would. After a moment of silence, Jack awkwardly scratched the back of his head, ignoring the aching of his arm. "So...," he started. "What happened?"

The stories flooded his ears.

"Ya were **melting**!" He knew that.

"You told us... told us about... you told us about the scars, Jack." He knew that, too.

_Sleep - a calendar - circling three weeks. _He knew he was out... but out for three weeks?! That - that wasn't possible! He just... He had thought three days at the most, but...

"Ve know about Easter, Jack." He... okay, he **didn't** know that.

Jack shook his head. "What? When did you get all this?" he demanded. And the stories were continued, and everyone just talked and talked and **talked**, Tooth's voice becoming more of a babble, Bunny hopping around the room in angry aggravation, North grasping his hands, Sandy's sand-figures flashing by and his movements becoming more animated by the second. All of a sudden, the stories came to an end, all ending at the same time. Jack flinched at the sudden silence. Everyone was looking at him, and he in turn looked down at his scars. The unasked question floated awkwardly around them, and Jack was silent.

"It was a long time ago. I swear."

The boy's voice broke them all out of their trance, and before anyone can say anything, Bunny spoke.

"Yer lyin'."

Jack stiffened, and then in a second, bolted out the bed and to the door. Bunny, as usual, was faster and managed to pull him back by his shirt. Jack heaved a sob. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was lying, it's only been three years since I last did that but I swear I won't do it anymore because I don't think I need to, and you guys are here and I'm not alone anymore and I'm sorry and I'm. Not. Proud." He shut his eyes, preparing for the worst; yelling, anger, maybe even distaste, the kind that happened last Easter.

What he wasn't expecting was a hug.

A **hug**.

From **Bunny**.

Before he could fully process that, Tooth fluttered over and joined in. Sandy was next, his golden sand making up for the fact that his arms were not ridiculously long enough to wrap around all three of them. Then North was there, suffocating them all with his strength and by the time they were let go, they were all gasping for air. As they recovered, they heard something incredible. Something so rare, so true and not covered by humor or pranks;

Jack laughed.

It was like a charm, as Tooth started giggling and Bunny chortled, Sandy laughing silently and North booming his famous Santa-Clause-laugh. As they embraced again, Jack felt an odd kind of warmth. Not the kind that he melted in, not the kind that he burned in pain with. The kind that kinda made him stronger. Healed him, un-melting him. He remembered that he thought that the warmth from sitting with his sister was different than the heat that had led to all this. He had dismissed the thought at the time, but now he saw he was right.

This warmth, was family-warmth.

The un-melting kind.

* * *

**Ohhhh my god we're actually done. Well, there will be an epilogue (with Jamie in it!) so watch out for that!  
**

**The epilogue will be for**** 150 reviews!**  


******I really hope you guys get to read it, and in case you don't, thanks for sticking with this story and giving me support. It really means a lot, you guys. Thanks. So. Much.  
**

******See you in other RotG stories!  
**


	8. Epilogue-I'll be Fine

**Hey you guys! Thanks for staying for the epilogue and yes, I love you all. I can't believe some people even searched for my story. ;A; You amazing people.**

**At one point the story got stuck on 149 reviews and I was just "Oh wow." But then it went on.  
**

**Note that this story was a lot more popular than Warmth to a Frost Child. Ehehe... ^_^;;**

**Also, the epilogue is a bit short, because, well, it's an epilogue.**

**IMPORTANT! A guest pointed out that some parts of my last chapters were slightly similar to the chapter "Weakness" in "31 Facts of December", which is an amazing fic by Sick Twisted Mind. I honestly don't think so because there's been at least thirty Jack self-harm fics and all of them have to be at least a bit similar. But if anyone was wondering, I didn't copy anything, it was completely original and written from my mind. And I've read "31 Facts of December", which is amazing and I wouldn't dare steal (plus isn't that plagiarizing?).  
**

**Now read!  
**

* * *

Jamie Bennett let his head drop onto page 109 on his math workbook. "Ughhhhh," he groaned. It was supposed to be winter already, but the autumn weather had been dragging on for days and _days_. He couldn't concentrate, especially not after the Guardians had told him the situation.

They had refused to tell him anything about him, at least until Jamie had pestered them about it. So they had told him about Jack, about how he was dying. How he would probably be out for a long time.

Jamie kinda wished he hadn't begged after that.

Giving up on problem two (_3x - 9 = 56 - 4x - 3, what is x?_), he dragged himself off the table and flopped on the bed. Downstairs, he could hear Sophie knocking on the door. "Jamie! Jamie, open the door! Open the door!"

Wait. Sophie?

"She's still supposed to be at school!" he muttered, going downstairs to see what made his little sister arrive home early. "Alright, Sophie, what's going o-" he started, but he never got to finish his thought as snow spilled into the doorway, Sophie jumping in it excitedly. "Jack is here! Jack is here!" she cheered, dumping her bag into her brother's arms and running off, screaming, "Snow daaaaay!"

Jamie blinked. The small backpack dropped from his hands as he rushed to get his coat, half shoving and half kicking his feet into boots. "Jamie? Where are you going?" he heard his mom say. He rushed out the door. "I'm just going to make sure Sophie doesn't get hurt!" he yelled back as he stumbled into the snow. There was a moment of silence as the door shut and he looked around. "Jack?" he asked, looking around.

No answer.

"Jack?" Jamie said, a little louder. He felt a growing dread as he saw children playing but no sign of a blue hoodie. "Jack, where are you? Thi-this isn't funny! You can't just come for a second and... and..." Jamie swiped at his eyes. What if he still wasn't okay? What if...

Jamie recalled the statement North had told him. There had been a grave moment where he had asked what would happen if Jack didn't make it.

_"The veather vould control itself. Jack... vould not be vinter then."_

_"_But that _can't_ happen!" Jamie cried, desperation sneaking into his voice. "Jack can't... he can't..."

"I can't what?"

"ACK!" He flailed his arms around, tipping off balance and landing face-first in the snow. He was up in a second. "Jack?" he asked, turning around. "At your service," the winter spirit grinned, snowball in hand. The "last believer" of the Nightmare Incident grabbed his shoulders. "Jack! You're okay!" he smiled widely. Jack shrugged him off. "Yeah, I'm fine. Up and about. I don't belong stuck in a room," he said. Jamie laughed. "Nothing can be more true," he chuckled, but the mirth soon gave way to a worried frown. "Are you sure, though? That you're okay?"

Jack hesitated. "Look, Jamie... You're mature enough, so I hope you can understand this." He sighed. "I'm not. Not really. And I probably won't be okay for a long time. I... I know it sounds a bit pessimistic. But I _will_ be fine. One day. Just...just listen. Whatever you have now, don't let go." Jack breathed out, relieved by the understanding look on Jamie's face. "I understand." Jack smiled, and was about to say something. He paused, inspecting the ball of snow resting in his palm with a confused expression. He then looked to Jamie - rather, behind him. "Hey, Jamie?"

Jamie shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. "What?" he asked nervously, turning around to see if anything was there. Nothing. "Jack, there's nothing the-"

The kid was met with a snowball before he could turn back around.

* * *

**So... yeah, I guess we're done.**

**I... I honestly can't express what I'm feeling, and I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it. I just... yeah.**

**Bye!**


	9. Response to hater!

**Okay guys, I'm really sorry for all this unnecessary stuff, but I HAD to do this; there was a hater on my story! :D**

**Yes, that was a smiley face. I've never had a hater before! :D**

From: no (Guest)

no:I find it very disrespectful and selfish on your part to be fishing for  
reviews and holding the story hostage, only updating when you have a certain amount of reviews. Are you serious? That is just incredibly rude and annoying.  
How could you call yourself a writer when your that greedy for reviews? Is  
that the only reason you write stories? The moment I saw that note on the  
bottom of the chapter asking for 10one notes, all my respect for the story and for you were lost.

**My response (after I finished smiling): Well, sorry for liking reviews. And tell that to the other million writers that do stories this way; I just wanted to, uh, what's the term... "Jump on the bandwagon"? I think you'd like to know that I stopped doing that, but what really pissed me off was "how can you call yourself a writer". For all I care, my opinion is that ANYONE can call themselves a writer, as long as they've written SOMETHING. Heck, you're a guest, so I don't know what you write, but I'm pretty sure it's great! And you can lose all the respect; does it look like I care? As long as someone wants to read this, hater or not, I'm happy because someone gets something to read. I don't care.**

**Have a nice day and keep writing! Sorry that I've offended you; no sarcasm included. Bye! :)**


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